Serendipity! For someone writing about poetry, what could be more fortuitous than the arrival of Valentine’s Day? It seems that Love is the second most important topic for any poet, the prime topic, of course, being the poets writing about themselves.
Let’s look at the some of the many dimensions of Love, starting with the first stages of Discovery.
Love walked right in and drove the shadows away;
Love walked right in and brought my sunniest day.
One magic moment, and my heart seemed to know
That love said “Hello!” —
Though not a word was spoken.
One look, and I forgot the gloom of the past;
One look, and I had found my future at last.
One look, and I had found a world completely new,
When love walked in with you.
That lyric of Discovery was written by Ira Gershwin and set to a lilting tune by his brother George. And here is Lorenz Hart writing with Richard Rodgers on the same subject though with an anatomical twist.
I took one look at you,
That’s all I meant to do,
And then my heart stood still.
My feet could step and walk,
My lips could move and talk,
And yet my heart stood still.
Though not a single word was spoken
I could tell you knew.
That unfelt clasp of hands
Told me so well you knew.
I never lived at all
Until the thrill
Of that moment when my heart stood still.
* * *
After the Discovery, if one is lucky, comes an Invitation, and none more famous than a poem by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), born the same year as Shakespeare but dead at 29 under mysterious circumstances.
Marlowe may or may not have been involved in espionage, as is sometimes suggested, but he surely was a rival to Shakespeare as dramatist and poet. He called this “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.”
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And, if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
And here is a more modern Invitation from the marvelous Maya Angelou (1928-2014).
The highway is full of big cars going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that’ll burn
Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering
where you’re going to turn.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow
But others say we’ve got a week or two
The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror
And you sit wondering
what you’re gonna do.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
In the business of love, the distances between Finding and Falling and between Falling and Fulfilling are not very great. Sir William Davenant (1606-1668), who wrote the frolicsome verse below about lovers and willow trees, was not really an important poet, but he was named Poet Laureate and buried with great pomp and circumstance in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. Could the rumor that he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate son have played a role?
Under the willow-shades they were
Free from the eye-sight of the sun,
For no intruding beam could there
Peep through to spy what things were done:
Thus shelter’d, they unseen did lie,
Surfeiting on each other’s eye;
Defended by the willow-shades alone,
The sun’s heat they defied, and cool’d their own.
Whilst they did embrace unspied,
The conscious willows seem’d to smile,
That they with privacy supplied,
Holding the door, as ‘t were, the while;
And when their dalliances were o’er,
The willows, to oblige them more,
Bowing, did seem to say, as they withdrew,
“We can supply you with a cradle, too.”
* * *
We leave it to our friend, Anonymous, to sum up our Valentine’s Day salute.
Over the mountains
And over the waves,
Under the fountains
And under the graves,
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
You may esteem him
A child for his might,
Or you may deem him
A coward for his flight;
But if she whom Love doth honour
Be conceal’d from the day,
Set a thousand guards upon her,
Love will find out the way.
Some think to lose him
By having him confined;
And some do suppose him,
Poor heart! to be blind;
But if ne’er so close you wall him,
Do the best that you may,
Blind Love, if so ye call him,
Will find out his way.
You may train the eagle
To stoop to your fist;
Or you may inveigle
The Phoenix from her nest;
The lioness, you may move her
To give over her prey;
But you’ll ne’er stop a lover:
He (She) will find out the way.
* * *
Time for our video, which carries us into the joys of Togetherness and then the Married State. First, Jim Dale presents a poem by Roger McGough, all about a very special summer he spent with his girlfriend, Monica. Dale set the poem to music.
Then Jill Tanner offers “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), the first important American poet. Finally, Cynthia Herman gives us a definition of “True Love” by Judith Viorst (1931- ).
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: AN INVITATION TO ROMANCE
